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Archive for August, 2008

The River of Sorrow, Kosi River, Breaches its Banks

About 55 people have died and at least two million others have fled their homes after massive floods inundated India’s eastern state of Bihar, said local officials.

Flood affected villagers board boats to move to relief camps in Madhepura District in Bihar state, India, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2008. The death toll from this year’s monsoon has already climbed past 800, and now some 1.2 million people have been marooned, and about 2 million more affected in the impoverished state of Bihar, where the Kosi river has burst its banks, breached safety embankments and submerged all roads leading to the region. (AP Photo/Aftab Alam Siddiqui). Image may be subject to copyright.

An aerial view shows the Kosi river flooding the villages in east Nepal August 23, 2008. Indian army troops helped evacuate more than 120,000 people from floods in eastern India, but more bad weather raised fears that rivers would to continue to overflow, officials said on Thursday. The flooding, which officials say are the worst in 50 years, was caused after the Kosi river broke a dam in Nepal where it originates, unleashing huge waves of water that smashed mud embankments downstream in Bihar state. Photo taken August 23, 2008. REUTERS/Stringer (NEPAL). Image may be subject to copyright.

An aerial view of a flood affected Madhepura town is seen, in north Bihar state, India, Wednesday, Aug.27, 2008. Indian officials rushed soldiers and air force helicopters Wednesday to flood-ravaged parts of northern India to provide aid to the more than 1 million people stranded by a surging river. The death toll from this year’s monsoon has already climbed past 800, and now some 1.2 million people have been marooned, and about 2 million more affected in the impoverished state of Bihar, where the Kosi river has burst its banks, breached safety embankments and submerged all roads leading to the region.
(AP Photo/Aftab Alam Siddiqui). Image may be subject to copyright.

An aerial view shows a damaged and submerged railway track in the flood-affected area of Kusaha in the eastern Indian state of Bihar August 27, 2008. The Kosi river in Bihar, one of India’s poorest states, smashed through mud embankments and changed course last week, unleashing huge walls of water that inundated hundreds of villages and towns. Food riots also erupted on Wednesday in eastern India, where more than two million people have been forced from their homes and about 250,000 houses destroyed in what officials say are the worst floods in 50 years. Photo: BBC/AFP. Caption: Reuters. Image may be subject to copyright.

Time to End Japan Imperial Aspirations!

S Korean emotions run high over island dispute

By HYUNG-JIN KIM – August 27,2008

SOUTH KOREA-CONTROLLED DOKDO (AP) — A rifle-toting South Korean stands guard on the remote and rocky islet of Dokdo, gazing out over the expanse of blue ocean toward Japan for any potential challenge to his country’s control.

Kim Eun-taek is part of a 40-member police contingent that has been on high alert since mid-July, when long-simmering tensions between the two countries over the volcanic outcroppings located roughly halfway between South Korea and Japan, spiked anew.

“I always hated Japan and I’ve come to hate it more these days,” said Kim, whose unit is tasked with safeguarding South Korea’s control of the islets, which Japan also claims and calls Takeshima.

A South Korean coast guard boat passes by Dokdo islets, known as Takeshima in Japan, in South Korea, Monday, Aug. 25. 2008. The dispute heated up following Japan’s announcement it would recommend that a government teaching manual refer to its claim to the area, which is mostly uninhabited but rich in marine life. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

The dispute heated up following Japan’s announcement it would recommend that a government teaching manual refer to its claim to the area, which is mostly uninhabited but rich in marine resources.

South Korea and Japan have been arguing about the islets for decades in a dispute made all the more complex by Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean peninsula from 1910-1945.

No incidents, such as the appearance of Japanese coast guard ships, which South Korea says sometimes sail near the islets, were reported Monday during a brief trip for foreign media organizations arranged by the South Korean government.

A group of seagulls peacefully flew in bright, sunny skies over the territory, composed of two main islets and 89 other rocks and reefs. Besides the police, the only civilian residents are an elderly South Korean couple.

“I explode with anger whenever they say it’s their territory,” Kim Sung-do, 68, who fishes for a living with his wife, said of Japan’s claim.

It is hard to overstate the emotional impact the dispute over the tiny islets — which if placed in New York’s Central Park would occupy just 0.5 percent of its total area — has for South Koreans.

During this year’s spat, the country temporarily recalled its ambassador from Tokyo and increased the number of coast guard boats patrolling the islets to three from two. Civic activists staged near-daily protests in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul and South Korean businesses took out newspaper ads backing the government’s position.

From South Korea’s perspective, the islets were the first Korean territory to be taken by Japan, when they were incorporated into Shimane prefecture in 1905, five years before the entire peninsula was colonized.

Tokyo has cited historical evidence it says back Japan’s sovereignty since at least the 17th century. South Korea has countered that it has far older historical evidence.

South Korean experts say the squabbling is not a simple territorial dispute but an emotional issue bound up with history that can affect the future of bilateral relations.

“Japan’s past wrongdoing and its colonial rule are condensed in these tiny islets,” said Ha Jong-moon, a Japan expert at Hanshin University near Seoul.

North Korea has also joined South Korea’s criticism of the Japanese moves, despite rising tension with the South over its government’s hard-line policy on the communist country.

In Japan, the dispute appears not to arouse anywhere near the same level of public emotion as in South Korea, though it remains a favorite cause of the vocal right wing and among fishermen on Japan’s western coast who want greater access to the rich waters between Japan and the Korean peninsula.

The Japanese government says the timing of its announcement on the teaching manual had already been determined long in advance, calling the latest tension with South Korea “clearly undesirable.”

“Japan is of the view that both sides should respond calmly to this issue recognizing the differences in positions between our countries as differences in positions,” the Japanese Foreign Ministry said in e-mailed answers to questions posed by The Associated Press.

Two major newspapers in South Korea have published war game scenarios, suggesting Japan would eventually defeat South Korea for control of the islets, owing to its superior air and naval power.

Some members of South Korea’s ruling party have proposed permanently stationing marines there.

Any chance of an armed clash appears remote, at least in the near future, in view of broader economic, trade and cultural ties, as well as the countries’ cooperation in trying to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear programs.

Still, Japanese coast guard patrol boats approach the islets about 70-90 times a year without sufficiently explaining their purpose, South Korea’s coast guard says.

Following last month’s dispute, in particular, Japanese ships have increasingly appeared near the islets at unusual times, such as before dawn or even when a high wave advisory was issued, said Kwag Young-han, skipper of the Sambong-ho, a 5,000-ton-class South Korean coast guard vessel patrolling the islets.

All eventually moved away, though most did not respond to South Korean radio messages, said Kwag, whose ship is equipped with two 20mm Vulcan cannons, 37 M60 machine guns and a helicopter.

Kim, the police guard, said he is proud to serve his country, but acknowledged duty on the islets has its challenges.

“The hardest thing about serving here is loneliness,” the black-clad Kim said near the lighthouse.

Don’t you just wish Kucinich was an independent candidate?

“Wake up, America. In 2001, the oil companies, the war contractors and the neo-con artists seized the economy and have added $4 trillion of unproductive spending to the national debt. We now pay four times more for defense, three times more for gasoline and home heating oil, and twice what we paid for health care.”

“Did the Democrats miss something along the way from the only man with the courage to introduce a resolution in June to impeach President George W. Bush and whose speech reminded those gathered who their fight actually was with?”

26/08/08 “ICH” — Thinking about the massive failure of the US media to report truthfully is sobering. The United States, bristling with nuclear weapons and pursuing a policy of world hegemony, has a population that is kept in the dark—indeed brainwashed—about the most important and most dangerous events of our time.

The power of the Israel Lobby is an important component of keeping Americans in the dark. Recently I watched a documentary that demonstrates the control that the Israel Lobby exercises over Americans’ view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The documentary is available here: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14055.htm

Public Domain Photo: USAF/Dept of Defense. The Orwellian named
MGM-118A “Peacekeeper nuclear missile”

As a result of the US media’s one-sided coverage, few Americans are aware that for decades Israel has been ethnically cleansing Palestinians from their homes and lands under protection of America’s veto in the United Nations. Instead, the dispossessed Palestinians are portrayed as mindless terrorists who attack innocent Israel.

If one reads Israeli newspapers, such as Haaretz, or publications from Israeli organizations, such as the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, one gets a radically different view of the situation than the propagandistic version delivered by US media and evangelical pulpits.

Most Americans know of the 2000 attack by Muslim terrorists on the USS Cole in Aden harbor that resulted in 17 dead and 39 wounded American sailors. But few have heard of Israel’s 1967 attack on the USS Liberty that left 34 American sailors dead and 174 wounded. Pressured by the Israel Lobby, President Johnson ordered Admiral McCain, father of the Republican presidential nominee, to cover up the attack. To this day there never has been a congressional investigation.

Torpedo damage to Liberty’s research compartment (Starboard side).

Russian peacekeepers, together with Georgian ones, had been stationed in South Ossetia since the early 1990s. On orders from Mikheil Saakashvili, the American puppet “president” of Georgia, the Georgian peacekeepers turned their weapons on the unsuspecting Russian peacekeepers and murdered them.

This action by Saakashvili, elected with money from the neoconservative National Endowment for Democracy, an election-rigging tool of US hegemony, was a war crime. In truth, the Russians should have hung Saakashvili, as he is far more guilty than was Saddam Hussein. But it is Russia, not Saakashvili, that the US media has demonized.

Americans have become perfect subjects for George Orwell’s Big Brother. They sit stupidly in front of the TV news or the New York Times or Washington Post and absorb the lies fed to them. What is wrong with Americans? Why do they put up with it? Are Americans the nation of sheep that Judge Andrew P. Napolitano says they are? Americans flaunt “freedom and democracy” and live under a Ministry of Propaganda.

Two decades ago, President Reagan reached agreement with Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev to end the dangerous cold war. But every one of Reagan’s successors has sought to pick a new fight with Russia. In violation of the agreement, NATO has been taken to Russia’s borders, and the US is determined to put former constituent parts of Russia herself into NATO. In an effort to neutralize Russia’s nuclear deterrent and compromise her independence, the US is putting anti-ballistic missile bases on Russia’s borders.

The failure of the American media is again evident in the coverage of the Georgian-Russian conflict. The US media presented the conflict as a Russian invasion of Georgia, whereas in actual fact the American and Israeli trained and equipped Georgian military launched a sneak attack to kill and to drive the Russian population out of South Ossetia, a separatist province.

The gratuitously aggressive US military policy toward Russia will lead to nuclear war. I am confident that if Americans elect John McCain, or the Republicans steal another presidential election, there will be nuclear war in the second decade of the 21st century. The neocon lies, propaganda, macho flag-waving, and use of US foreign policy in the interests of a few military-security firms, oil companies, and Israel are all leading in that direction.

The November election is perhaps the last chance to avoid nuclear war. But the opportunity might already have been missed. The Republicans have chosen as their candidate one of the most

ignorant warmongers alive. The Democrats’ choice was between one of the most divisive women in America and a man of mixed race with a funny name. Considering American’s taste for war, the Democratic candidate could fail to defeat the GOP war candidate.

Many Americans will vote against Obama because he is black. Why does mixed ancestry confer the black label? If America’s population was predominantly black, would Obama be considered white?

Race and propaganda are more likely to determine the outcome of the November election than any awareness or consideration of real issues by voters.

The real issues are suffocated by the media. The American middle class is being destroyed by jobs offshoring and work visas for foreigners, while the incomes of the super rich are soaring. The US dollar’s reserve currency status is eroded. The US is massively in debt at home and abroad. Health insurance is unaffordable for the vast majority of the population. Injured veterans are being nickeled and dimed, while Halliburton’s profits escalate. Americans are losing their homes, while the US government bails out banks. Wars with Iran, Russia, and China are being planned in order to secure US hegemony.

Americans no longer have a government that is for the people and by the people. They have a government for and by special interests and an insane ideology.

But Americans have war, which lets them take out all their frustrations, resentments, and disappointments on “Muslim terrorists” and “Russian aggressors.” Few Americans are disturbed that 1.25 million Iraqis and an unknown number of Afghans have died as a result of American invasions based on Bush regime lies and deceptions. Even Americans, like Senator Biden, Obama’s selection for vice president, who understand that the wars are based on lies, still want the US to win. So, it was all a mistake and a deception, but let’s win anyway and keep on killing.

I know people who still complain that the US did not nuke North Vietnam. When I ask why Vietnam should have been nuked, they reply, “if we had nuked them we would have won.”

What would America have won? The answer is world loathing and the loss of the cold war.

For many Americans, war is like a sports contest in which they take vicarious pleasure and cheer on their side to victory. Millions of Americans are still bitter that “the liberal media” and war protesters caused America to lose the Vietnam war, and they are determined that this won’t happen again. These Americans have no realization that there was no more reason for the US to be fighting in Vietnam 40 years ago than to be fighting today in Iraq and Afghanistan or tomorrow in Iran.

Obama, if elected, is no guarantee against nuclear war. Obama has shown that he is as much under the Israel Lobby’s thumb as McCain. Obama’s foreign affairs advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, is not a neocon, but he was born in Warsaw, Poland, and has the Pole’s animosity toward Russia. The Bush administration has already changed US war doctrine to permit preemptive nuclear attack. With the US government determined to ring Russia with puppet states and military bases, war is inevitable.

Presidential appointees face confirmation in the Senate. Any of Obama’s appointees who might be out of step with plans for US and Israeli hegemony could expect opposition from large corporations and the Israel Lobby. There is no assurance that an Obama administration would not be positioned on “the issues” by the same special interests that have positioned the Bush administration.

Americans are filled with hubris, not with knowledge. They have no awareness of the calamity that their government’s pursuit of hegemony is bringing to themselves and to life on earth.

Dr. Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury in the Reagan Administration. He is a former Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal, a 16-year columnist for Business Week, and a columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service and Creator’s Syndicate in Los Angeles. He has held numerous university professorships, including the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by the President of France and the US Treasury’s Silver Medal for “outstanding contributions to the formulation of US economic policy.”

“Don’t Murderers Still Hang in Texas?”

A girl carries a cooking pot filled with water on her head in Baghdad’s Sadr City August 14, 2008. Millions of Iraqis lack access to sufficient clean water and proper sewage five years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Picture taken August 14. REUTERS/Mahmoud Raouf Mahmoud. Image may be subject to copyright.

About a billion liters of raw sewage is dumped into Baghdad waterways each day—enough to fill 370 Olympic-sized pools. (Reuters).

Acute cases of diarrhea are three times more common in eastern Baghdad, where water service is most problematic, than in the rest of the city, the United Nations says. That side of the city has also seen a higher incidence of cholera. (Reuters).

Food riots as floods swamp South Asia

By Sharat Pradhan

Fri Aug 22, 2008 8:24am EDT

LUCKNOW, India (Reuters) – Flood victims demanding food and shelter beat up government officials in India on Friday as monsoon rains spread misery among millions of people across South Asia and forced thousands from their homes.

People take shelter at the road side as floodwaters from the Saptakoshi River created havoc in Sunsari August 21, 2008. Wednesday.REUTERS/Jitendra Khadka. Image may be subject to copyright.

Rising rivers have crumpled embankments, swamped farmlands and destroyed homes, killing almost 1,000 people since the monsoon rains began in June. More …

Stranded people make their way through flood waters in the eastern Indian state of Bihar August 22, 2008. Flood victims demanding food and shelter beat up government officials in India on Friday as monsoon rains spread misery among millions of people across South Asia and forced thousands from their homes. REUTERS/Krishna Murari Kishan. Image may be subject to copyright.

Season’s Death Toll

India: about 1,000 people;

Nepal: up to 100;

Bangladesh as many as 50.

Other casualty

Up to 10,000 flood victims treated for water-borne diseases.

Displaced

Up to one half of a million people have been displaced in Bangladesh, Nepal and India in last week alone.

“Bush has no right to lecture about human rights”

A price the American people are paying for the failure of the House of Representatives to impeach Bush, Cheney and their cabal for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity — the greatest assaults on peace and human rights of this century — is the Bush Administration’s bellicose drum beat for war against a widening circle of chosen enemies.

Imagine George Bush with the blood of a million Afghans and Iraqis on his hands, the shame of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo hanging around his neck, having trashed the Bill of Rights, the Geneva Conventions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, lecturing China for violating human rights at the World Olympics in Beijing, a hopeful symbol of international cooperation through the peaceful competition of athletes in friendship.

Imagine George Bush lecturing Russia on human rights after insisting on putting U.S. (not NATO) Star War missile sites on the Russian border in Poland and the Czech Republic despite the tragic lessons of the Cold War, all told the greatest crime in history. Among its costs are expenditures that could have provided food for all, vastly reduced poverty on the planet, progressed toward quality universal health care, education and housing for everyone. Instead it took more lives by military violence on five continents and greater military expenditures than World War II and released the genie of nuclear weapons to a status beyond control. Can the planet survive another arms race? And what was George Bush planning when he urged immediate admission of Georgia to NATO just months before Georgia invaded South Ossetia?

Imagine George Bush who committed wars of aggression, the “Supreme International Crime,” against Afghanistan and Iraq, invading and occupying both, judging Russia’s conduct as” unacceptable,” and demanding withdrawal of Russian forces because it sent troops into Georgia to protect the population of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from an invasion by Georgia that killed citizens and peace keepers alike, destroyed property and had driven tens of thousands from their homes.

Nor was Georgia a stranger to Russia. It had been a part of Russia since 1801 for nearly all the last two centuries. It had great power within the USSR. Joseph Stalin was from Georgia, as were L. P. Beria, longtime head of the NKVD and many others, Edward Shevardnadze, the Soviet Union’s last Foreign Minister and the first President of the Government of the independent Georgia that separated from the Soviet Union in 1990.

George Bush took a keen interest in Georgia, which is on Russia’s southern border, but on the opposite side of the planet from the U.S., early in his Presidency and in Mikhail Saakashvili. Under Bush’s direction the U.S. provided major military arms and training for Georgia. It persuaded, or paid Georgia which had no interest in Iraq to send 2000 troops to there, a number exceeded only by the U.S. and U.K. It trained and supported the Georgian troops for duty in Iraq. Saakashvili, a U.S. law school graduate, to quote the New York Times “…positioned himself to become one of the world’s most strident critics of the Kremlin” and with the strong support from the U.S. he was elected President of Georgia.

The U.S. helped them militarize what had been a weak Georgian state. The Pentagon helped overhaul Georgia’s military forces, train its commanders and staff officers. U.S. marine strained Georgian soldiers in the fundamentals of battle. The forces were equipped with Israeli and U.S. firearms, reconnaissance drones and other sophisticated equipment, including anti aircraftweaponry. That the U.S. trained and equipped Georgian forces fled in the face of Russian forces should have told us something about the U.S. training and equipping of foreign militaries.

All this U.S. support and manipulation was with the public goal, urged by George Bush, of making remote Georgia, though a thousand miles from Europe across the Black Sea and Russia, member of NATO and placing Abkhazia and South Ossetia under Georgian control by force.

As in most matters in which George Bush takes aggressive action, oil is a factor in some form. Georgia has made itself available for a pipeline from the Caspian Sea through Azerbaijan then across Georgia to the Black Sea, a major Bush goal, carrying oil from Azerbaijan and former Soviet Republics in Central Asia, produced in large part by U.S. oil companies, to Western markets by-passing Russia. Western Europe shared this U.S. interest.

President Bush visited Georgia in 2005, the first U.S. President to do so. Condoleeza Rice visited while National Security Advisor to Bush and since. Saakashvili has been a frequent guest at the White House and in the Washington corridors of power.

It is George Bush’s enticement and incitement of Georgia that created the present crisis. We have not been told what has been paid Georgia for it.

Suppose NATO had agreed to Georgia membership before Georgia invaded South Ossetia, as the U.S. urged. NATO would have been bound by mutual defense pact to defend Georgia as a Member. NATO, a Cold War creation, which includes all the former colonial powers, should be abolished. The U.S. persuaded NATO to share blame for its assaults that balkanized Yugoslavia which was created to end centuries of violence in the Balkans through unity. It tried to persuade NATO to join in its wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq. It nearly succeeded in Georgia.

The U.S. has a major military airbase in Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet Republic to Russia’s south and more than 1500 miles east of Georgia which is used to bomb Afghanistan. The U.S. has surrounded Russia with military bases from the Baltic states south across its western border with Europe then east for more than 2500 miles to its borders with Xinjiang Province in western China and Mongolia.

Now we can see the hypocrisy of the U.S. calling NATO into emergency session to address the Georgia crisis with false claims made repeatedly about the ceasefire and withdrawal terms negotiated by President Sarkozy of France, only to back down from all its threats and demands for action after fomenting international friction on false pretenses. The world cannot be made safe for hypocrisy, or mendacity.

It is noteworthy that Georgia is within one hundred miles of the border of Iran across Armenia. While George Bush vigorously protests Russian confrontation with Georgian troops which invaded South Ossetia, he has continued his threatening of Iran with a war of aggression for its alleged but unproven efforts to achieve nuclear weapons capability while he engages in a huge U.S. expenditure for new nuclear weapons. The U.S. now has its largest Naval presence in the Gulf region since the Gulf war, pointed toward Iran. The probability that President Bush will cause Israel and the U.S. to attack Iranian nuclear facilities plants during his remaining months in office remains high. Such an attack would violate the Nuremberg Charter and Article 56 of Protocol 1 Additional to the Geneva Convention 1979, which protects “Works and Installations Containing Dangerous Forces,” including nuclear facilities, from attack, because of the “consequent severe losses among the civilian population” from the blast and radiation.

Filipino women seek Japan’s apology for WWII rapes

AP – Saturday, August 16

MANILA, Philippines – Two dozen elderly Filipino women and their supporters protested outside the Japanese Embassy in Manila on Friday demanding a clear-cut apology and compensation from Tokyo for wartime sexual slavery.

Former Filipino “comfort woman” Piedad Nobleza, 86, holds slogans during a demonstration outside the Japanese Embassy in suburban Manila on Friday Aug. 15, 2008. Elderly Filipino women and their supporters demanded Tokyo’s clear-cut apology and compensation for wartime sexual slavery by Japanese troops. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila). Image may be subject to copyright.

Japan has acknowledged its troops forced women into front-line brothels across Asia during World War II, and its leaders have apologized.

But last year, many surviving “comfort women” were outraged when then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said there was no proof the women were coerced.

Rangoon, Burma. August 8, 1945. An ethnic Chinese woman who was in one of the Imperial Japanese Army’s “comfort battalions” is interviewed by an Allied officer. Source: Comfort Women

“The Japanese government should publicly apologize and put in history how the women were abducted and forced to serve in the comfort women system,” said Rechilda Extremadura, head of a group called Lila-Pilipina that has documented 174 cases of Filipino women who were forced into wartime brothels. About 100 women remain alive.

Former “comfort woman” Lee Yong-Soo (L) stands beside her supporters holding portraits of Chinese, Philippine, South Korean and Taiwanese comfort women who were sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War II, at a protest held in front of the Japanese parliament in Tokyo, in this 14 June 2007 file photo. Japan on 27 June 2007 brushed aside calls from US lawmakers for a fresh apology to wartime sex slaves, even as the former “comfort women” renewed their demands for Tokyo to acknowledge their plight. Japan said the US move to pass a resolution calling for an “unambiguous” apology from Japan for the coercion of women into army brothels during World War II would not damage relations between the two allies. Photo from Getty Images by AFP/Getty Images. Caption Daily life. Image may be subject to copyright.

“This is a war crime,” Extremadura said. “But the Japanese government continues to be deaf.”

Virginia Villarma, 79, said she was victimized between 1943 and 1944. “We can never forget what they did to us. Until now, it’s been a wound in our chest.”

The Japanese Embassy in Manila refused to immediately answer a request for comment and asked that questions be e-mailed.

Tokyo has generally refused to pay damages to individuals for the war, saying the issue was settled between governments in postwar treaties. Japanese courts have rejected a number of lawsuits brought by former sex slaves.

U.S. Hands Off Georgia and Russia – END NATO NOW!

TELL BUSH, CHENEY, RICE AND CONGRESS: U.S. HANDS OFF GEORGIA AND RUSSIA – NO NEW WAR – END NATO NOW!

It is with growing concern that we observe that the U.S. government is threatening new military moves that carry the danger of another war-this time against Russia.

The Bush regime and the corporate U.S. news media have launched an anti-Russia hate campaign. Yet just as with the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and the threats on Iran, the threatened military confrontation with Russia is also based on a lie.

The truth, hidden by most of the corporate news media, is that Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili, unleashed his U.S.- and Israeli-armed and-trained forces on the tiny autonomous region of South Ossetia, murdering civilians and attacking Russian peacekeeping troops stationed there. Only then did Russian troops respond.

Saakashvili is the president who sent 2,000 Georgian youth to join the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. The U.S. supplies the weapons to his army. U.S. Special Forces and Israeli advisers and mercenary contractors direct the Georgian military, which just held three weeks of joint exercises with the U.S. Army and Marine Corps in July. We must take note that like Iraq and Iran, Georgia itself is a prize for U.S. oil companies, as it is a major transit point for Central Asian oil.

There is little doubt that U.S. arming of Georgia and its push to get Georgia into NATO set the scene for the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia and created the threat of a new major war. Now Washington also threatens Russia by placing missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the people there. Surrounding Russia with this military alliance of new NATO members is the greatest danger to peace and stability on a global scale.

It is time to remember that NATO was established as an anti-USSR military alliance aimed at reinforcing capitalist control and preventing socialist revolutions in the colonialist powers of Europe weakened by World War II. Since the end of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the U.S. has attempted to vastly expand NATO and turn it into a military instrument to consolidate U.S. corporate power, surround Russia and China and re-conquer the former colonial world.

Consider these examples:

Yugoslavia. Based on the lie that NATO was defending small nations, U.S.-NATO intervention and bombing destroyed multinational Yugoslavia and turned the Balkans into a collection of dependent ministates ruled by the U.S. and Western Europe powers.

Afghanistan. Based on the lie that this was a police action against terrorists, U.S.-NATO have carried out a seven-year occupation leaving the country in ruins and enslaved.

Iraq. Here the lie about weapons of mass destruction was so blatant, and the U.S. position so weak, that most NATO countries refused to join the occupation and utter destruction of Iraq.

No one can believe Bush is promoting peace in Georgia. It is time not only to stop this expansion but to end the NATO war machine completely by dissolving NATO.

It is encouraging to anti-war people worldwide that Georgians themselves have issued a statement condemning the Saakashvili machine. “The entire responsibility for this fratricidal war,” the Georgian Peace Committee says, “for thousands of children, women and elderly dead people, for the inhabitants of South Ossetia and of Georgia falls exclusively on the current president, on the Parliament and on the government of Georgia.” (Aug. 11)

We cannot do less than the people of Georgia who oppose the current president and want no part of NATO. We demand from Washington:

(1) Stop interfering in Georgia and the Caucasus

(2) Stop attempting to expand the NATO military organization into the countries of Eastern Europe and those that border on Russia.

You have said you regret the “blot” on your record caused by your parroting spurious intelligence at the U.N. to justify war on Iraq. On the chance you may not have noticed, I write to point out that you now have a unique opportunity to do some rehab on your reputation.

If you were blindsided, well, here’s an opportunity to try to wipe off some of the blot. There is no need for you to end up like Lady Macbeth, wandering around aimlessly muttering, Out damn spot…or blot.

It has always strained credulity, at least as far as I was concerned, to accept the notion that naiveté prevented you from seeing through the game Vice President Dick Cheney and then-CIA Director George Tenet were playing on Iraq.

And I was particularly suspicious when you chose to ignore the strong dissents of your own State Department intelligence analysts who, as you know, turned out to be far more on target than counterparts in more servile agencies.

It was equally difficult for me to believe that you thought that, by insisting that shameless George Tenet sit behind you on camera, you could ensure a modicum of truth in your speech before the U.N. Security Council. You were far savvier than that.

That is certainly the impression I got from our every-other-morning conversations in the mid-80s, before I went in to brief the President’s Daily Brief to your boss, then-Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger, one-on-one.
I saw the street smarts you displayed then. The savvy was familiar to me. I concluded that it came, in part, from the two decades you and I spent growing up in the same neighborhood at the same time in the Bronx.

On those Bronx streets, rough as they were, there was also a strong sense of what was honorable -honorable even among thieves and liars, you might say. And we had words, which I will not repeat here, for sycophants, pimps, and cowards.

Your U.N. speech of Feb. 5, 2003 left me speechless, so to speak – largely because of the measure of respect I had had for you before then.

Outrage is too tame a word for what quickly became my reaction and that of my colleagues in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), as we watched you perform before the Security Council less than six weeks before the unnecessary, illegal attack on Iraq.

The purpose – as well as the speciousness – of your address were all too transparent and, in a same-day commentary, we VIPS warned President George W. Bush that, if he attacked Iraq, “the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.”

That’s history. Or, as investigative reporter Ron Suskind would say, “It’s all on the record.”

You have not yet summoned the courage to admit it, but I think I know you well enough to believe you have a Lady Macbeth-type conscience problem that goes far beyond the spot on your record.

With 4,141 American soldiers – not to mention hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens – dead, and over 30,000 GIs badly wounded, how could you not?

What Did You Know…and When?

Here is what could be good news for you, Colin.

Information that has come to light over the past two years or so could wipe some of the blot fouling your record. It all depends, I guess, on how truthful you are prepared to be now.

Much of the new data comes from former CIA officials who, ironically, have sought to assuage their own consciences by doing talk therapy with authors like Sidney Blumenthal and Ron Suskind.

At first blush, these revelations seem so outlandish that they themselves strain credulity. But they stand up to close scrutiny far better than what you presented in your U.N. speech, for example.

If you now depend on the fawning corporate media (FCM) for your information, you will have missed this very significant, two-pronged story.

In brief, with the help of Allied intelligence services, the CIA recruited your Iraqi counterpart, Saddam Hussein’s foreign minister, Naji Sabri, and Tahir Jalil Habbush, the chief of Iraqi intelligence. They were cajoled into remaining in place while giving us critical intelligence well before the war – actually, well before your speech laying the groundwork for war.

In other words, at a time when Saddam Hussein believed that Sabri and Habbush were working for him, we had “turned” them. They were working for us, and much of the information they provided had been evaluated and verified.

Most important, each independently affirmed that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, information that should have prevented you from making a fool of yourself before the U.N. Security Council.

The Iraqi Foreign Minister

The FCM gave almost no coverage (surprise, surprise!) to the reporting from Naji Sabri, which continues to be pretty much lost in the woodwork.

In case you missed it, we now know from former CIA officials that his information on the absence of WMD was concealed from Congress, from our senior military, and from intelligence analysts – including those working on the infamous National Intelligence Estimate of Oct. 1, 2002.

That NIE, titled “Iraq’s Continuing Programs for WMD,” was the one specifically designed to mislead Congress into authorizing the president to make war on Iraq.

One question is whether it is true that Sabri’s reporting was also concealed from you.

Tyler Drumheller, at the time a division chief in CIA’s clandestine service, was the first to tell the story of Naji Sabri, who is now living a comfortable retirement in Qatar. On CBS’s “60 Minutes” on April 23, 2006, Drumheller disclosed that the CIA had received documentary evidence from Sabri that Iraq had no WMD.

Drumheller added, “We continued to validate him the whole way through.”

Then two other former CIA officers confirmed this account to author Sidney Blumenthal, adding that George Tenet briefed this information to President George W. Bush on Sept. 18, 2002, and that Bush dismissed the information as worthless.

Wait. It gets worse. The two former CIA officers told Blumenthal that someone in the agency rewrote the report from Sabri to indicate that Saddam Hussein was “aggressively and covertly developing” nuclear weapons and already had chemical and biological weapons.

That altered report was shown to the likes of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was “duped,” according to one of the CIA officers.

Worse still, the former CIA officials reported that George Tenet never shared the unadulterated information from the Iraqi foreign minister with you, the Secretary of State and Naji Sabri’s counterpart. Again, whether that is true is a very large outstanding question.

The Chief of Iraqi Intelligence

Again, Colin, I am assuming you take your information from the FCM, so let me brief you, as in the old days, on what else has popped up over the past couple of weeks.

Two other CIA clandestine service officers have told author Ron Suskind that Iraqi intelligence chief Habbush had become one of our secret sources on Iraq, beginning in January 2003.

I hope you are sitting down, Colin, because Habbush also told us Iraq had no WMD. One of the helpful insights he passed along to us was that Saddam Hussein had decided that some ambiguity on the WMD issue would help prevent his main enemy, Iran, from thinking of Iraq as a toothless tiger.

Habbush, part of Saddam’s inner circle, had direct access to this kind of information. But when President Bush was first told of Habbush’s report that there were no WMD in Iraq, Suskind’s sources say the president reacted by saying, “Well, why don’t you tell him to give us something we can use to make our case?”

Apparently, Habbush was unable or unwilling to oblige by changing his story.

Nevertheless, later in 2003, when it became clear that he had been telling the unwelcome truth, Habbush was helped to resettle in Jordan and given $5 million to keep his mouth shut.

Suskind also reveals that in the fall of 2003, Habbush was asked to earn his keep by participating in a keystone-cops-type forgery aimed at “proving” that Saddam Hussein did, after all, have a direct hand in the tragedy of 9/11.

This crude forgery was not unlike the one that originally gave us the yarn about yellowcake uranium going from Niger to Iraq.

You will hardly be surprised to hear there is evidence, much of it circumstantial, that Vice President Dick Cheney was the intellectual author of both incredibly inept forgery operations.

Sorry to have to bring this up, but there is something else about Habbush that you need to know. He had actually been in charge of overseeing what was left of the Iraqi biological weapons program after the 1991 Gulf War, and reported that it was stopped in 1996.

Sabri vs. Curveball

Before the attack on Iraq, Tenet’s deputy, John McLaughlin, was repeatedly briefed on Sabri’s information, but complained that it was at variance with “our best source” – a reference to the infamous “Curveball,” the con-man whom German intelligence had warned the CIA not to take seriously.

You may recall hearing that on the evening before your U.N. speech, Drumheller warned Tenet not to use the information from Curveball on mobile biological weapons laboratories; Tenet gave Drumheller the brush-off.

The CIA artists’ renderings of those laboratories, to which you called such prominent attention during your speech, were spiffy, but bore no relationship to reality. Tenet and McLaughlin knew this almost as well as Sabri and Habbush did.

“We have firsthand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and rails,” you will recall telling the world. Later, you lamented publicly that you had not been warned about Curveball either.

McLaughlin seemed to confirm that this was so, in an interview with the Washington Post in 2006: “If someone had made those doubts clear to me, I would not have permitted the reporting to be used in Secretary Powell’s speech.”

This is highly disingenuous, even by McLaughlin’s and Tenet’s standards, since they had deliberately chosen to ignore Drumheller’s warning. I know Drumheller; he is a far better bet for truthfulness that the other two.

Outright Lies

Although I am against the death penalty, I can sympathize with the vehement reaction of normally taciturn Carl Ford, head of State Department intelligence at the time. Ford has revealed that both Tenet and McLaughlin went to extraordinary lengths, and even took a personal hand in trying to salvage some credibility for the notorious Curveball.

In an interview for Hubris, a book by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Carl Ford spared no words, asserting that Tenet’s and McLaughlin’s analysis “was not just wrong, they lied…they should have been shot.”

Though I’ve been around a while, I am not the best judge of character, Colin, and perhaps I am being too credulous in giving you the benefit of the doubt concerning what you knew – or didn’t. It could be, I suppose, that you were fully briefed on Naji Sabri, Habbush, Curveball, and all the rest of it, and have been able to orchestrate plausible denial.

If that is the case, I suppose it would seem safer to you to let sleeping dogs lie.

If, on the other hand, what my former colleagues say about your having been fenced off from this key intelligence is true, your reaction seems a bit … how shall I describe it? … understated.

Perhaps you are too long gone from the Bronx. Back there, back then, letting folks use you and make a fool of you without any response was just not done.

It was the equivalent to running away when someone was messing with your sister. And letting oneself be bullied always set a bad precedent, affirming for the bullies that they can push people around – especially understated ones – and risk nothing.

In sum, the CIA had both the Iraqi foreign minister and the Iraqi intelligence chief “turned” and reporting to us in the months before the war (in Naji Sabri’s case) and the weeks before your U.N. speech (in the case of Tahir Jalil Habbush).

Both were part of Saddam Hussein’s inner circle; both reported that there were no weapons of mass destruction.

But this was not what the president wanted to hear, so Tenet put the kibosh on Habbush and put Sabri on a cutter to Qatar.

So Here’s Your Opportunity

Either you knew about Sabri, Habbush and Curveball, or you did not. If you knew, I suppose you will keep hunkering down, licking your blot, and hoping that plausible denial will continue to work for you.

If you were kept in the dark, though, I would think you would want to raise holy hell – if not to hold accountable those of your former superiors and colleagues responsible for the carnage of the past five years, then at least to try to wipe the “blot” off your record.

Granted, it probably strikes you as a highly unwelcome choice – whether to appear complicit or naïve. Here’s an idea. Why not just tell the truth?

If House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers is any guide, Congress seems quite taken with the explosive revelations in Ron Suskind’s book “The Way of the World.”

On Thursday, Conyers joined Suskind on Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now,” and declared that he is “the third day into the most critical investigation of the entire Bush administration.” (He clearly was referring to the Suskind revelations.)

Conyers emphasized that, even though Congress is in recess, “We’re starting our work, and … I’m calling everyone back. We’ve got a huge amount of work to engage in.”

At the same time, though, Conyers said he is “maybe the most frustrated person attempting to exercise the oversight responsibilities that I have on Judiciary.”

A good deal of his frustration comes from stonewalling by the Bush/Cheney administration, which will surely cite national security or executive privilege to justify withholding any damaging information.

Bush Visits CIA

It was, no doubt, pure coincidence that President Bush made a highly unusual visit to CIA headquarters, also on Thursday, before leaving for Crawford on vacation.

The official line is that he wanted an update on the situation in Georgia and the Russian role there, but Bush did not need to go to Langley for that

Rather, given the record of the past seven years, it is reasonable to suggest that he also wanted to assure malleable Mike Hayden, the CIA director, and his minions that they will be protected if they continue to stiff-arm appropriate congressional committees, denying them the information they need for a successful investigation.

Pardons dangled as hush money? Not so bizarre at all.

Some will recall that George H.W. Bush, just before leaving the White House, pardoned one of your former bosses, Casper Weinberger, who had been indicted and was about to go to trial for lying about his role in the Iran-Contra fiasco.

If past is precedent, sad to say, Conyers is not likely to get to first base, UNLESS he can get knowledgeable witnesses to come forward.

On Thursday he did not rule out a suggestion that Habbush be asked to come before Congress to testify, but the CIA can easily thwart that kind of thing – or delay it indefinitely.

In any case, your own credibility, though damaged, has got to be greater than Habbush’s.

Let me suggest that you offer yourself as a witness to help clear the air on these very important issues. This would seem the responsible, patriotic thing to do in the circumstances and could also have the salutary effect of beginning the atonement process for that day of infamy at the Security Council.

If we hear no peep out of you in the coming weeks, we shall not be able to escape concluding one of two things:

(1) That, as was the case with the White House Situation Room sessions on torture, you were a willing participant in suppressing/falsifying key intelligence on Iraq; or

(2) That you lack the courage to expose the scoundrels who betrayed not only you, but also that segment of our country and our world that still puts a premium on truth telling and the law.

Think about it.

With all due respect,

Ray McGovern

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. During his 27-year career in CIA’s analysis ranks, he chaired National Intelligence Estimates and briefed the President’s Daily Brief to the most senior national security officials. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

New Delhi (August 14, 2008): The India Resource Center can confirm that the Coca-Cola company has shut down another bottling plant in India – in Sinhachawar in Ballia district in Uttar Pradesh.

A community-led campaign had demanded the closure of the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Sinhachawar because of indiscriminate pollution by the bottling plant as well as illegal occupation of land.

The India Resource Center had led a fact finding team to the plant in June 2007 and found shocking incidences of pollution that were in complete violation of environmental laws and regulations in India.

While the community knew that the plant had been un-operational since the fact finding visit, this is the first official confirmation of the closure.

The bottling plant in Sinhachawar was a Coca-Cola franchisee owned unit operated by the Brindavan Bottlers Limited, which is owned by India’s largest bottler of Coca-Cola, the Ladhani Group of Companies.

In a letter to the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board dated October 27, 2007, Brindavan Bottlers informed the Board about the closure of the plant due to “huge” and “unbearable” financial losses.

“We welcome the official closure of the bottling plant which we had demanded. We will now hold Coca-Cola accountable for the damages they have caused in the area because of their negligence,” said Mrs. Chinta Dewi, sarpanch (head of the village council) and member of the locally based Coca-Cola Bhagao, Krishi Bachao Sangharsh Samiti (Get Rid of Coke, Save Farming Struggle Committee).

Another Coca-Cola bottling plant – in Plachimada in Kerala – has been shut down since March 2004 due to community opposition.

“Community campaigns in India have shut down Coca-Cola bottling plants in Plachimada and in Balia, and now we will ensure that Coca-Cola bottling plants in Mehdiganj and Kala Dera also meet the same fate,” said Nandlal Master of Lok Samiti, a community group challenging Coca-Cola’s operations in Mehdiganj, near Varanasi. Lok Samiti worked very closely with the community in Sinhachawar towards the plant’s closure.

The Coca-Cola company is also the target of intense community campaigns in Mehdiganj and Kala Dera in India for creating water shortages and pollution. The company was forced to agree to an assessment of its bottling operations in India as a result of a sustained international campaign. The assessment, released in January 2008, was a damning indictment of Coca-Cola’s water management practices in India. The assessment recommends that Coca-Cola shut down its bottling plant in Kala Dera because the plant contributes significantly to water shortages in the area.

“The Coca-Cola company has chosen to embark on an ambitious public relations drive to paint a green image of itself globally. But Coca-Cola’s track record on the ground in India is one of dismal environmental and human rights problems, and no amount of public relations can solve the problems it continues to create in India,” said Amit Srivastava of the India Resource Center, an international campaigning organization that works directly with communities in India to challenge Coca-Cola.

The fact finding team in June 2007 found several cases of pollution, including:

The bottling plant has indiscriminately dumping its sludge, considered to be industrial hazardous waste, across the plant premises, in complete violation of the laws regarding handling and disposal of industrial hazardous waste in India.

The Effluent Treatment Plant was non-operational, and the bottling plant was discharging its wastewater into surrounding agricultural fields and a canal that feeds into the river Ganges.

The plant did not disclose the amount of hazardous waste being used and generated, as required by the Supreme Court of India for all industrial units in India that deal with hazardous waste.

Managing Uncle Sam’s New Kind of Banana Republics in Eastern Europe

From a Cockeyed Tyrant to a Genocidal Murderer

NATO Aspirant Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili salutes during an Independence Day military parade in Tbilisi May 26, 2008. Tens of thousands of Georgians massed in the capital on Monday to protest against Saakashvili who they say stole victory for his ruling party in last week’s parliamentary election. REUTERS/Irakli Gedenidze/Pool (GEORGIA). Image may be subject to copyright.

Georgia’s Rigged Elections

Opposition supporters attend a rally in front of the parliament building in Tbilisi November 2, 2007. Tens of thousands of Georgians challenged President Mikhail Saakashvili on Friday by taking part in what could be the biggest opposition protest since the Rose Revolution demonstrations that swept him to power. REUTERS/Str (GEORGIA). Image may be subject to copyright.

By-Hook-or-by-Crook Government: No Holds Barred!

Police officers detain an opposition supporter during a rally in front of the parliament building in Tbilisi November 7, 2007. Georgian police armed with batons on Wednesday broke up a six-day protest outside parliament calling for the resignation of U.S. ally President Mikhail Saakashvili, but opposition leaders vowed not to be defeated. REUTERS/Irakli Gedenidze (GEORGIA). Image may be subject to copyright.

State of Emergency: A Tiny Fascist Dictator Is Born!

Military personnel patrol a street in central Tbilisi, November 8, 2007. A ring of soldiers cordoned off central Tbilisi on Thursday after Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili declared a state of emergency and shut down independent media to quash six days of anti-government protests. REUTERS/David Mdzinarishvili (GEORGIA). Image may be subject to copyright.

The Right to Rule by Military, Riot Police, Rubber Bullets, water Cannons …

Police clash with opposition supporters during a rally in front of the parliament building in Tbilisi November 7, 2007. Georgian riot police fired rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannon on Wednesday to break up a six-day-old rally by protesters demanding the resignation of President Mikhail Saakashvili. REUTERS/David Mdzinarishvili (GEORGIA). Image may be subject to copyright.

Nino Burjanadze, a former Georgian parliament speaker, speaks during an interview with Reuters in Tbilisi July 7, 2008. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili must show more respect for democracy if he is to uphold the values of the “Rose Revolution”, said Burjanadze, the woman who until three months ago was his most important domestic ally. Picture taken July 7, 2008. REUTERS/David Mdzinarishvili (GEORGIA). Image may be subject to copyright.

Shafted by Uncle Sam: A Disposable Anal Probe [used on Russia]

Photo: Reuters. Image may be subject to copyright.

And then came the indiscriminate mass murder and genocide

Georgian troops fire rockets at a South Ossetian separatist territory near a settlement in Ergneti, 59 miles from Tbilisi, August 8, 2008. REUTERS/Irakli Gedenedze. Image may be subject to copyright.

A resident walks along a street destroyed by a Georgian strike in the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali August 17, 2008. REUTERS/Denis Sinyakov. Image may be subject to copyright.

The Right to Clean Air IS a fundamental Human Right!

I need clean air! Why are you arresting me? (Photo AFP). Image may be subject to copyright.

[I’ll give you clean air, you basta*d!] Police restrain a protester in front of the gates of Kingsnorth Power Station near Rochester in Kent, southeast England August 9, 2008. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor. Image may be subject to copyright.